


Late to Rise

by thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic



Series: One Thought, Many Worlds [2]
Category: Heathers (1988)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Established Relationship, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Innuendo, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 09:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14281653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic/pseuds/thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic
Summary: Short, unrelated pieces from my various universes based on a couple lines of dialogue:“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here.”“You don’t have a choice.”





	1. Reluctant Risers (Far from Innocent/Relative Innocence AU)

**Author's Note:**

> My brain won't work today. I've tried, but all I did after getting home from work is stare at my screen. I couldn't do updates again.
> 
> I'm a bit afraid I won't be able to finish any of them.
> 
> And I discovered, too, that I can't draw, either. I mean, I used to dabble, but now I really can't. I sketched stuff earlier and it was horrid.

* * *

“I don’t want to leave,” JD muttered, snuggling up against her back and making a noise that Veronica would actually call a purr. She wasn't so sure that was far off for him, being like a cat, even if cats had become somehow synonymous with women—maybe that thing about spinsters living alone with a houseful of them—and dogs were supposedly more masculine. “I want to stay here.”

“You don’t have a choice,” she reminded him. “You have to get up and go to work.”

“You're lying,” he said, tracing his fingers in circles on her stomach. “We don't have any work, and if we did, you'd be getting up, too. Seeing as we're in this business together.”

“Hmm,” she said, shifting around to face him. “Does that mean we're going to stay in bed all day?”

“That is the usual practice for newlyweds. Though Enid will likely interrupt us eventually.”

“Not if we take a page from your book.”

He frowned. “My book?”

“The extreme making an impression?” Veronica prompted. “Trust me. If she walks in on us once, she will probably never do it again.”

“You'd better hope you're right. She could be twisted enough to stay and watch.”

“Way to kill the mood.”

“Some people would consider that an improvement.”

Veronica shook her head. “Not me. I'm not so sure I want an audience for that.”

“Well, they'd all be in awe of your endless and rather ageless beauty, but I was actually just enjoying sharing this bed with you. I don't need anything else.”

“So what you're really saying is that the old man is too tired?”

He laughed. “And here I thought I was being romantic.”

“You? Romantic?” Veronica teased. “Do you even know the meaning of the word?”

“Very funny. I should make you pay for that.”

She grinned. “Yeah? And how are you going to do that?”

“You might regret asking.”

She shook her head. “As messed up as our relationship is, we're well past that. Unless, of course, you have developed some weird kink that I won't want to know about.”

“Only ones you'll like, I promise.”

She snorted. “You know I know better than to trust you.”

“And yet you love me.”

She nodded, pulling him close and stopping just short of kissing him. “I do.”


	2. Where Home Is (Fools' Errand AU)

* * *

“I don’t want to leave,” Veronica said, knowing she was going to be in trouble if she didn't go. Her parents might take it too far in their anger, since they blamed JD for Bud attacking her, try and get his mom or Scott in trouble. “I want to stay here.”

“You don’t have a choice,” he reminded her, brushing back her hair and looking at her. She could drown in that look. He needed her. And he loved her. “You have to go.”

“I know, but I hate them so much right now.”

“They're still your parents, and I still win the award for shittiest parents, okay?”

She sighed, knowing that her problems with her parents were nothing compared to what his father had done. “I know that, too. I just... I don't want to leave you. Not even for a second. I'm afraid you won't be here when I get back.”

He let out a breath. “I know I said we moved around a lot, but we're not moving now. Mom promised, and Scott got this place for us. They're getting married. We're staying.”

“You sound like you have your doubts.”

“It's still very hard for me to believe,” he said. “All of it... too good to be true, except for the part about my dad finding me again. That part... it's too easy to believe.”

“They arrested him,” Veronica said. “He won't be able to do this again.”

“At least not before he gets out again,” JD said, and she pulled him close to her.

“Fuck them,” she said. “I'm not going back to them. I'm staying here with you. This is home.”


	3. Holding Out for a Hero (Chaos Killed the Demogorgon AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it started angsty and got silly. *shrugs*

* * *

“I don’t want to leave,” a sleepy voice said, and relief washed over her as she heard it, glad to know that he was back awake again. She'd been scared that this time he wouldn't wake up, her poor little pyro, and she didn't want to lose him. She couldn't. Also, they couldn't. He was the only one who could do what they needed to do to save her cousin. “I want to stay here.”

“You don’t have a choice,” she said softly, reaching over to comb through his hair. “Um... well, you do, but... you don't...”

He frowned. “You're not making sense.”

“You do have a choice,” she said. “None of us have the right to take that from you, but we... we do need your help. A lot. So we'd want you to do it even if you didn't want to, and so... it would seem like, from our perspective... you don't have a choice. Most people here wouldn't understand you saying no, but you can. You have the right to, no matter what we think.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

She sighed. She hadn't really explained that. “I... you know what we're asking you to do, don't you? To go back in there and find Will.”

He nodded. “I know.”

“You're not up to this. You know that. You need more rest and food and... and you shouldn't have to do this,” she said, touching his cheek. “I don't want to lose you.”

“You want to find your cousin. I can.”

“You don't have to do it just for me.”

He turned his head and studied her. “Do you think everything I do is for you?”

“Um...”

“Because it is,” he said, with the sort of smile that said he was teasing. “Everything I do is for you.”

“My hero,” she said, using the same tone he was.

“Of course you know this means you have get me a slushie.”

“Fine.”

“Two.”

“What?”

“Two slushies,” he said. “That's a better price. Can't have you thinking I'm easy.”

“I would never.”

“Three.”

“Lifetime supply?”

“Much better. Okay. I can go play hero now.”


	4. Torn Between Two Homes (Beautiful Trauma AU)

* * *

“I don’t want to leave,” Veronica said as JD wrapped his arms around her. She looked around at the cul-de-sac, the houses full of people, kids in all the yards, abilities in use—in control—all over the place. “I want to stay here. Everyone is so nice, and they made us feel at home. It's more like home than I think mine has ever been, and I have an almost well-adjusted home compared to the Heathers.”

“You don’t have a choice,” JD said. “Your parents are going to have my family arrested if you stay any longer.”

She sighed. “I wish they understood.”

“What, that you found your soulmate and want to move off the grid with him and his family of freaks? Yeah, sure. That's everyone's ambition for their child.”

She shrugged. “Mine want college. I think. That doesn't mean I can't have you.”

“Oh?”

“Don't start. I'm supposed to be leaving, remember?”

“There's such a thing as one for the road.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, right.”

“You know I don't want you go. And it actually isn't about sex. You were the one that turned it to that when it could have been any innocent thing in the universe.”

She looked up at him. “Is that a roundabout way of saying you love me?”

“It's a hell of a lot better than goodbye.”


	5. Midnight Confessions (Static on the Airwaves/Changing the Station AU)

* * *

“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here.”

JD's voice was so quiet she almost missed it. She had thought he was already asleep. He'd been in bed when she crawled in, and he hadn't so much as stirred. Normally he would have pulled her close, but he'd just lain there and she'd been the one to snuggle up against him.

“I don't... I can't go back to him. Or a group home.”

She winced. He was afraid they'd take him from here, his first real home, and his brother. That wasn't right. It wouldn't happen. No one would be that stupid.

“You don’t have a choice,” she whispered. He turned to her, his eyes betraying his horror. She swallowed and forced a smile. “You're not going anywhere. I refuse to lose you.”

He pulled her close and held onto her, shaking. She did her best to comfort him, knowing there was no way she could ever let him go.


	6. Fearing the Change (Time's Wayward Children AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the bonus chapter because I'm an idiot and despite my fears that I can't finish my current stories, I like the idea of this other AU.
> 
> Remember I said I wanted to do a time travel AU? Here's a snippet of the concept. Sort of.

* * *

“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here.”

Veronica knew it was stupid, but here things were uncomplicated. They weren't who they were in their own time or the future. They were still damaged, flawed versions of themselves, but they weren't the ones who'd gotten everything wrong and forced others to pay for it.

Here they were just... _them._ Two of them, so close to something, so close to a love they'd both been denying—or was she still imagining that he felt something, too? Sometimes it was impossible to tell with him, and that was when the timelines weren't actively shifting around them.

“You don’t have a choice,” he reminded her. “We don't go back, we risk undoing all the work we did here. What happens when we get back to the future and find they never invented slushies?”

She snorted. “Why is it, of all the things that could go wrong and potentially devastate history, you choose that to fear?”

He frowned. “Are you kidding? What would life without a slushie be? Not one worth living, that's for damned sure.”

“I don't know. I think there are other things a lot more essential to life than that. Not just air and food and water but love and laughter and family.”

He snorted. “Do you know how many times we've altered things now?”

“Yes.” She kept score. She had a book she carried with her, knowing the risk it was but unable to let go of what had been and needing some way of telling the world how it used to be before things went so wrong and they were chosen to fix it.

“And in all those alterations, has my family life ever once been good?”

She swallowed. Just once. The once when they found themselves very awkwardly married to each other. His mother's death seemed to be a fixed point in time, one that always happened, and the mitigating factor in how things went after that was always whether Bud dragged him along afterward or dumped him on some other relative.

“There's still laughter,” she said. He watched her, and she struggled to get the next words out. “And love.”

He held a hand out to her. “Let's go get a slushie.”


End file.
